Sell you a Bridge chapter 51

Powers Estate July 19th 2010 8:45 PM EDT

Aside from the eight Talons that had been dropped by my Uncle's creepy  fucking gun (which I was now convinced was definitely evil and would  absolutely be showing to Jim at the first opportunity) I managed to drop  another ten of the bastards by myself over the course of the fight.  Unfortunately reflexes only work if you notice the attack and I had  gotten tagged with more than a few non serious wounds over the course of  this brawl. The biggest obstacle in this mess was that assassination  arts aren't really built for countering. Split second reaction times can  only do so much with a hole like that in your combat style.

Meanwhile  the others were having similar results. Fifteen minutes into this fight  and we'd collectively managed to whittle the number of Talon from sixty  or so to about twenty. Sadly for us, those remaining twenty were  clearly the stand outs because they made all the other Talons we  temporarily killed look like rank amateurs. As of this moment I was  engaged in a fight with Alexander Staunton again, and apparently he had  been too lazy to actually try last time because I couldn't land a  fucking blow on him. Those stupid blade gauntlets were everywhere, I  felt like I was fighting a metal tornado.

Well,  I was actually fighting four Talons, but Alexander was the one giving  me some trouble. The other three were decent but with my enhanced  attributes thanks to Madame Xanadu's spell I could actually keep up with  my reaction speed now. I basically had low level super speed at this  point. But Alexander was the main issue, whenever I went in to finish  one of the other four he intercepted me and when I tried to put him down  he either countered or shifted slightly and took the hit to leave me  open for one of the others.

With  me keeping a full quarter of the remaining Talon pinned however, we had  officially occupied all of them. Nightshade and Acheron had abandoned  crowd control and were each engaged with five of their own, while  Warlock's Daughter, my cousin, and my teammates had pinned down five  between the four of them. As soon as even one of them went down this  little stalemate would start to snowball against them and we would be  able to mop up all their forces. But no matter how hard I tried I  couldn't break through.

My  skill set wasn't built for direct combat. I was a thief, not a warrior.  My stealth was for infiltration, my combat for assassination, and my  reflexes for finding split second opportunities to strike. If not for my  power granted years of experience, my enhanced spell given strength, my  already huge muscles, and my absurd reaction time I wouldn't be doing  nearly this well. Aside from that issue the biggest gap in my abilities  was the ability to fight multiple opponents. Assassination arts were  designed to strike at one spot with overwhelming force and then vanish,  it really didn't lend itself well to group combat.

We  stayed that way for about five minutes deadlocked before I finally got  an opening. Over the course of the battle I had been memorizing every  counter and parry Alexander made. I would feel him out with attacks  aimed at specific spots and executed in specific ways to try to find any  sort of pattern to his movements. I'd found one or two, but I always  tested them with my sword and they'd ended up being feints to draw me  in. Thank god for Madame Xanadu's spell because I'd have passed out from  exhaustion by now if I hadn't had it.

Finally,  after about a hundred plus exchanges with the five Talons, I noticed a  nearly imperceptible hitch in Alexander's deflection of an underhand  strike on his left side. I didn't exploit it immediately, spending a  good thirty seconds trying other avenues of attack as if I hadn't seen  it but when I got an open shot I dove forward committing hard to sword  and driving right at his spine below his ribs. He reacted nearly  instantly of course, but that split second pause was enough time for me  to slip a shuriken out of my pocket and put it through the eye of a  Talon off to my left.

Force  equals mass times acceleration. With the sharpness of the shuriken the  enhanced strength of my already developed muscles, my perfect technique  and a split second launch, it wasn't surprising that durasteel palladium  alloy punched through eye and skull and shredded the soft brain  underneath, dropping one of the bastards in his tracks. Once that  happened it was like dominos falling. One downed Talon gave me leverage  to find more openings, within two minutes I dropped a second, a minute  later a third.

Now  I was down to just two of them and Alexander and the experienced Talon  was starting to run into trouble. Less targets meant an easier time for  him playing defense, but it also meant less distractions for me, and it  turned out Alexander wasn't stronger or faster that the last time we  fought, just much more experienced at fighting in a group. Five minutes  after talon number one went down I finally got an opening and drove my  tanto right through Alexander's throat and into his fucking brain stem.

From  there it was all mopping up. The other two Talon's weren't up to taking  me down alone and I dropped them within forty five seconds or so, then I  moved on to my true role. Playing support. I was a thief, not a  warrior, and with my stealth and assassination skills having me loose  and unwatched on the battlefield was pretty much an automatic game over  for the other team. When I jumped in to sneak attack one of the  opponents my cousin and teammates were dealing with alongside Warlock's  Daughter it opened up a hole in their lines and they just demolished the  other four.

Teaming  up on the rest of them took even less time and finally we had all of  them completely downed. Possibly dead but definitely disabled. Just in  case Nightshade manacled them with her shadows. I wanted to go and help  the others but Nightshade signaled me to stop. She shook her head sadly  "I get it kid. I want to help too. But those fights aren't something  people at our level can get involved in. Those three are world class  heavyweights in the magic community. If we jump in we're more likely to  be a hindrance than a help."

Morgana  and Madame Xanadu were gone anyway, and we could barely make out Jim's  fight inside that black shadow twister. Since we couldn't do anything to  help we decided to watch Blood's fight. Or Etrigan I guessed? Not  really sure how that worked exactly. We had to walk around the twister a  bit to get to where we could see the fight and the result was...not  what I was expecting. I looked over at Nightshade with a raised eyebrow  "I thought that Blood was a master of magic. He looks like he's just  brawling with Grundy."

She  shrugged "He is a master of magic, but The Demon prefers physical  combat. Besides Grundy is highly magic resistant so fighting him with  spells is much less effective. That sword from earlier clearly wasn't  doing the trick either or they wouldn't be fist fighting now." The  luxurious foyer and several rooms off to the side of it were, in a word,  wrecked. Walls torn out, craters in the marble, and burned and ruined  furniture and carpet strewn about as ashes floated down around the form  of Etrigan wailing on Grundy like a cartoon cat with a giant mallet.

However,  regardless of how hard or often the demon hit the undead giant, blows  kept slamming into the smaller monsters ribs and head as Grundy gave as  good as he got. Etrigan looked fucking enraged (not that he looked calm  when I saw him earlier, big glowing red eyes and scales make for a hell  of a resting bitch face) but no matter what he did the massive zombie  just would not stay down.

Hellfire  flickered at carious spots around the duo like candle flames and  Grundy's dirty black funeral suit was scorched, the lace cuffs and  neckerchief mostly burned away, but it didn't seem to have affected the  giant at all. Honestly the person who built this damn house should get a  medal, because I had no idea how the entire section about the two  feuding demonic powerhouses hadn't dropped on their heads yet. My  attention was ripped away from all of this however, when an explosions  of darkness rolled over the house.

I  turned to look and saw Jim, adjusting his cuffs, standing over the  unconscious but clearly breathing form of The Shade. Richard Swift was  in bad shape, his black spectacles smashed and nose broken, but Jim had  clearly been trying to wound not kill. The dark clad gentleman thief  pulled himself to his feet gingerly, and then made and awkward and  pained bow. "That'll be it for me then my good man. I shall retreat with  my dignity intact if I may. I'll owe you one in the future." He sounded  much more amiable than I would in his situation, I must admit.

Jim  chuckled "Of course old thing. Take your leave. I'll keep the debt in  mind going forward." The shadows rose up and swallowed the black clad  man and my teacher turned to us. "Ah, you all look like you've done  well. Smashing, I seem to have taken care of my opponent for the moment,  what say I help our grudging companion out with his enemy." He turned  smugly toward Grundy and Etrigan who were still brawling on the floor  and tapped his cane three times. The same creepy tolling bell rang out  and those big scary doors from when Zatara had fought him appeared.

Etrigan  jerked his head up and hissed, hurling himself backwards as the same  giant skeletal hand that had caught the magician came out and grabbed  Grundy. Unlike the magician though the hand didn't seem to actually  touch the undead giant, the fingers just sank in and dragged a kicking  and squirming ethereal shape out of the his body. The huge zombie  immediately fell limp as the hand dragged the spirit through the doors  and into the ghost roads. Jim gave a satisfied nod and turned to tip his  hat at Etrigan, who just glared at him and hissed again.

A  slightly weak voice spoke up from behind us "Sadly that won't be enough  to free that poor soul." Madame Xanadu stepped into the room, one hand  around the hilt of her knife and the other covering her burned side.  "That curse is tied to the dark magic that pervades this city, and won't  be undone so simply, even by your prodigious power James. Still, he'll  be at rest for a while, and that in itself is a relief to him I'm sure."  She stumbled a bit and Blood caught her, not Etrigan, Blood, who I  suppose had changed back while we were distracted by the light show.

She  smiled gratefully at him "Morgana is gone. She overpowered me. I wasn't  expecting her to have the shield of the Dragon Knight. That thing was  always a powerful artifact. Nearly as great as Caliburn itself. This  knife is powerful but it was only ever an addendum to Arthur's strength.  Despite that sad fact however, I do have a spot of good news. As well  as some..." She glanced at me with pity "Less than fortunate tidings."  She held out a hand and showed me a small note, I wasn't sure what it  was until I recognized the handwriting and my stomach dropped out.

My  Dearest Morgan, it's been so many days since I've seen you, but I have  so much to tell. Sadly there isn't enough time to write it all before I  get my chance to act, so I can only promise to tell you all of it  another day. I'll be counting the minutes until we reunite, search for  me at the Labyrinths heart and we can become gods together. All my love, Annabel. P.S if you touch that magic whore again I'm going to castrate you. I swallowed hard.  Apparently my dead ex stole the thread and knew how to perform the ritual, oh also she was somehow alive. Well fuck.